


Dancing Around Each Other

by oneawkwardcookie



Series: Song and Dance [1]
Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bollywood, Bollywood Buddie, Bollywood!Buddie, Dancing, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Ficlet, Fluff, Indian wedding, M/M, Pre-Relationship Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz, Self-Indulgent, Songfic, Weddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:15:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25656520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oneawkwardcookie/pseuds/oneawkwardcookie
Summary: It starts because they get hit on while on the job. A lot.**This starts after 3x11 and ends somewhere after 3x18, and it's canon divergent because nothing bad happened to anyone (3x15 and 3x18 did not happen, no siree.)
Relationships: Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV)
Series: Song and Dance [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2040189
Comments: 17
Kudos: 153





	Dancing Around Each Other

Even after he stops fighting, Eddie keeps up his training routine, maintaining the wall of muscle, since it helps him on the job too and punching a bag with Buck next to him feels...healthy. Buck is back at work and clearly trying to make up for the time off work, and he just seems to ramp it up to 11 once he's given the all clear by the doctor.

The result is that, over that spring and summer, they get hit on while on the job. A lot.

The first time they discover a fool-proof method to get out of these situations is entirely Buck’s fault (although, he’s sure if they asked Buck, he’d be the one blamed.)

They’re at a minor car crash, and Buck is getting hit on by a small, blonde haired girl, who seems to be entirely ignoring the nature of the situation, and how uncomfortable Buck looks as he tries to focus on getting her friend clear of the vehicle and therefore isn’t saying very much back. Except, Eddie sees the extra tension in his shoulders and the way his eyes aren’t meeting anyone else’s, and his mouth is clamped shut even though he’s clearly concentrating hard. Eddie finishes up with getting the other car open for Hen and Chim to work their magic, and heads over, telling him he’ll swap out with him since he's got a call from his girlfriend. By the time Buck turns back from giving him a confused look, the woman has drifted away to wait on the sidelines. He claps Buck on his shoulder and walks off, mission completed.

The next time, even though Buck has a few more words to say, it doesn’t perturb the woman. Eddie changes it up, offering up Buck’s boyfriend as an out. This time, he’s the one left reeling a little at how Buck doesn't try to act defensively afterwards, with the kind of machismo that Eddie is used to.

Then someone puts their hand on Buck’s arm and even though Buck is saying in no unclear terms that he's not interested, they're still needling away. Eddie strides over and places an arm over Buck's shoulder, pressed against him as he asks, "is there a problem?" The person’s hand drops away like Buck is on fire (which, given how red he looks, maybe isn't too far off) and just looks between them before rolling their eyes and stalking off, grumbling under their breath about his boyfriend being real after all.

After that, it becomes a habit. Eddie gets hit on, Buck comes and grabs onto his arm and says that his boyfriend needs to come and fight fires. Buck gets ogled by a bunch of people and he places a protective arm around his shoulder, Buck leaning into him and bending his neck to rest his head on his shoulder for a few seconds as the looks disperse.

As time passes, he notices how Buck starts to throw in random terms of endearment into their little scenes, holding on for a few more seconds once they're out of people's eyelines. It’s…convincing. Buck is a great actor.

* * *

* * *

One day, invitations arrive at the station, with a note inside, thanking them for saving her and her fiancé, and inviting them to their wedding reception. They all remember the call with varying degrees of detail, and piece together that it was the coach crash a week ago, with Buck and Eddie inside the upturned vehicle, cutting people out, and Chim and Hen carefully extracting them from the wreckage. 

He thinks he can remember the woman in question - tall and dark haired - so he’s particularly offended that there's an invitation for Hen, Chim, Bobby and Eddie, but not one for him. He sulks a little, rolling his eyes at how excited Chim gets about taking Maddie as his plus one.

“How about I take you?” Eddie’s words pull him out of his funk, only to send him into utter confusion.

“What do you mean _take me_?”

Eddie gives him an incredulous look. “I don't have a plus one and you don't have an invitation,” shrugging like it's obvious.

“You want _me_... to be your plus one?” It’s not obvious, or at least his brain can’t seem to compute exactly what Eddie is offering here.

Chim pipes up, “not if you keep acting that dumb,” and gets a glare from Eddie in return.

* * *

* * *

The wedding reception is in three weeks’ time and they're fortuitously off shift that night, so they all RSVP as attending with a plus one, Eddie putting his name down in careful capital letters as he looks over Eddie's shoulder in disbelief.

Buck recognizes the bride as she comes out, helped along by an older man, and Eddie mentions recalling the groom as the man who was sat next to her, hand clinging to hers as they were both pinned in their seats, her leg trapped under the seat behind her.

Their seats are right in the back corner, so it allows them to be a little inconspicuous and simply watch the first round of dancing, reveling in how everyone joins in, arms in the air as the DJ hypes them up. The whole room is a buzz of activity: those not on the dancefloor dipping in and out of the room with drinks in their hand, women in shiny clothes and copious amount of jewelry hanging around in small groups, chatting and taking photos, men in suits joking and laughing.

There are good natured jeers as the DJ announces the last song and asks people to take their seats as the music dies down. A man that introduces himself as the bride’s brother gives a speech, and they can only understand half of it, which is why they’re surprised when their table is pointed out in his speech, giving them credit for saving the couple’s lives and letting them make it to this moment. His rest of his sentence is almost lost in the round of applause that starts up, but the table still rounds on Buck and Eddie when the man says, "especially since it was a couple that helped them."

Eddie holds his ground with a firm glare, until he looks at him. He can feel the heat on his own cheeks. When Eddie catches his eye, the other man shrugs and turns to the table with, "we get hit on on the job a lot." He leaves it at that, and Buck is supremely grateful for the lack of follow up questions.

The arrival of food distracts them, and after the starters and main course, the music starts up again. With a little more confidence in their guts, alcohol in their blood and food in their stomach, everyone else gets up to dance, leaving Buck and Eddie to sit in a silence that steadily becomes heavier and more awkward. They both look over at the dancefloor, catching glimpses of Chim twirling Maddie, Hen and Karen clutching each other’s hand while they gesture wildly at each other in time to the music, Bobby and Athena doing some approximation of swing dancing with grins wide enough to see across the room.

“Do you want to dance?” Eddie breaks the silence, and when Buck turns back, he sees that Eddie is still looking at the dancefloor.

“I... sure, I just didn't want to show you up.”

Eddie laughs out loud at that, head thrown back for a second with the force of it. “You are going to swallow your words in about 5 minutes.” He waves his hand for Buck to get up and follows behind him to the dance floor. They take a spot on the edge.

The music is unfamiliar, but he soon gets into the groove of it, looking around him to try and copy some moves. He's turns to Eddie to show him a step that he thinks matches a particular lyric in the chorus, or at least what he understands of it, and sees that Eddie is... moving. In a way that he's never seen him move before.

Eddie at work is measured and deliberate in every step, efficient, looking before he leaps. Eddie with Chris is softer and yet faster, quick to run to his son or ruffle his hair or catch a drip of ice cream that's about to fall off the edge of the cone.

This though. It's like Eddie _is_ the music, hips moving smoothly, sinuously. There are hints of Spanish guitar in the song and Eddie is salsa dancing like there's no one else in the room. That is, until he notices Buck's staring and starts to direct his hand gestures and hip rolling at Buck. It's only when Eddie gives him a smug look that Buck shakes himself out of his stupor and accepts the challenge, mimicking the swaying, moving backwards as Eddie moves forwards.

The song soon changes to something more electronic and Eddie takes it in his stride, popping and locking to the drumbeat, leaving Buck feeling like he’s struggling to catch on and catch up.

He holds his hands up in defeat and Eddie's face lights up with a grin, but he carries on dancing, except this time he's dancing _with_ Buck, even with the space between them. As more people join, they get slowly pushed further into the middle, and Buck grabs onto Eddie’s hand to pull him closer and avoid losing him in the undulating crowd. As Eddie comes crashing into him, he lets go but Eddie recaptures his hand to keep him near.

* * *

* * *

He’s still holding onto his hand and the warmth of the bodies around him is starting to make him wish that he’d left his suit jacket on his chair, but it’s worth it for how enthusiastically Buck is dancing now, even while his eyes are constantly flitting around, as though he’s trying to capture the whole evening in one go, before settling back on him with a smile.

The volume of the music dips and the DJ shouts out, “every time I shout 'change over', it’s time to throw the next couple in.”

Even with his height, Buck is curious and manages to pull them a little closer to the space that’s cleared in the middle of the dancefloor, where the married couple are dancing with each other, hands clasped and gazing lovingly at each other as they move in a slow circle. The song has bits of English in it, and he can just about work out what the repeated chorus means. The groom’s brother is next, with the woman who was standing next to them in the circle, and their dancing is far more energetic; flirty looks exchanged as the man waves his hands in front of the woman, who shakes her hips at him with a wiggle of her eyebrows.

The DJ calls out for a change-over, a hand on his back is pushing him, and suddenly all the whistling and cheering is for them. They’re still for a moment, Eddie feeling frozen at being the center of attention for everyone, except Buck has decided that he’s going to show what he’s learnt from his observations and begins dancing, feet bouncing and one hand in the air as he moves back and forth in front of him.

Not to be outdone, Eddie joins in, copying his moves. Soon, it’s like the crowd has melted away and it’s only them, circling each other seamlessly. He almost misses the DJ’s call to change over, until he sees another couple edging towards where Buck is still waving his hands in the air. He grabs Buck’s arm and nods his head at the people over Buck’s shoulder. Buck lets himself be led off the dancefloor and they’re about to make their way to back to their seats when someone claps him on the shoulder.

The groom’s brother looks between both of them. “For your first time at an Indian wedding, you guys really had the dancing together down. Sign of a great partnership eh?”

Buck turns to him, a tentative smile on his face. Eddie can’t help but return it.

“Yeah, it really is.”

**Author's Note:**

> This started as a fake relationship type thing, but I clearly wanted to go to an Indian wedding so I decided to shove that in as well (inspired by one of my best friend’s wedding three years ago – a raucous Sikh Punjabi affair that was too much fun.)
> 
> I love dancer!Eddie headcanons, and I have decided that Eddie’s dancing in 3x18 is like his little wave: it’s him doing it like Chris to make him feel more comfortable and because he LOVES HIS SON SO DAMN MUCH.
> 
> The songs that played as Buck and Eddie dance as Naah by Harrdy Sandhu, The Humma Song from OK Jaanu, and Suit Suit by Guru Randhawa ft. Arjun. I've made a little playlist of them [here](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPzIHKGvAnC0fDTSeXYIwzzIYmm2SfP9D).


End file.
